Legend of a Noble Devil
by king carlos
Summary: Kou Vine, after being killed for his 'crimes', reincarnates on the future and he sees how things are going. Now as Kou Balam he will make a new path for himself and get the revenge he wishes, even if this path is filled with blood, deceit, war, and s*x. (slight AU, OOC for some characters, a war hero from the past reincarnates on the present, harem)
1. Chapter 1

BOOOOM! It sounded as if the entire world was shaking.

A large mountain was crushed into pieces as countless broken rocks flew into the air, creating clouds of dust obscuring everything.

Suddenly, with a shout, a figure broke out from the dust clouds. This figure, who was emitting a dazzling light like thunder and lightning in a stormy night, was quickly flying forward. His tremendous speed produced a long streak of dust trailing him with the shape of a serpent dashing forward.

Behind this figure, a crowd of people flew through the clouds, creating countless long streaks of dust. They were madly chasing after the person in front, as if they have lost their minds!

"What good New Satan Faction, what great Old Satan faction! A total of 2379 devils chasing me through more than 800 kilometers! Aha… You guys are really taking great efforts to eliminate me! Is my little life really such a trouble for you all?! Is the fact I got those powers really that bad for you all that you had to exterminate my whole clan?!"

A loud explosion echoed out as Kou Vine - the man flying in front, suddenly stopped on an enormous rock, before quickly turning around with a wild laughter. An extremely spear strike flew out of his hand at full speed, like a flashing streak of lightning in the eternal night of the Underworld.

It was the last of the power he had!

The light flew into the crowd like a lightning strike, causing pitiful cries to burst out. But as one fell, another rose. Some of them bled in the skies before falling to the ground, all the while swinging their hands and feet!

Kou Vine, who was now bleeding profusely, was rendered unable to fly because of his previous strike.

Although Kou Vine was among the most powerful young devils in the Underworld, after this last amazing spear strike, he had become nothing but a spent bullet. At the moment, he was like a lamp out of oil - he had no energy left for flight. When he landed, the rocks under his feet were quickly stained with his blood!

Panting heavily, Kou Vine's eyes were still filled with scorn as he sneered, "Humph, even if I have reached the end of my life today, even if this young master is doomed to fall, do you really think that there will be many of you who will survive here? That any of you will get what was born in me after the death of the Four Satans?!"

The rock where he stood was on the peak of a huge mountain.

When Kou Vine looked back, he was like a king in the sky, looking down with imperceptible stateliness even in this imminent predicament!

Fearing Kou Vine's aggression, the hundreds of devils chasing him stood still in front of him! They were looking at him with misgivings in their eyes. Far behind them, beyond the limits of one's eyesight, there was a path. It was the path they had traveled along which was currently made of countless corpses. Suddenly, an unexpected howling wind came over, and a few decapitated heads with open eyes were blown and sent rolling.

The cost they paid for Kou's death was obviously shown by this path of carnage which was built of flesh and blood, covering hundreds of kilometers over mountains and rivers!

Although the Vine Demon was clearly at the end of his rope, and although the surrounding people knew that the Vine Demon would find it impossible to get away, for the moment, none of them still dared to take a step forward!

All of them clearly knew that, at this moment, whoever dared to take a step forward, would instantly get killed, get buried along with the dead, and go to hell with Kou Vine!

No matter who, there would be no exception! No one doubted that as they could see this young hero of this generation.

It was a clear point with no room for any doubt.

Because the guy standing in front of them, was the Vine Demon!

Laughing out loud at all the noble devils and at all enemies with no fear whatsoever, he was the monarch of the universe!

The Vine Demon was a legend in the Underworld!

The 2379 devils from the supposedly enemy factions had set up huge traps and used countless approaches to hunt him down, traveled eight hundred kilometers through mountains and rivers and nothing on the entire path continued the same as it was before, however, Kou Vine, on his own, had unexpectedly killed almost all the 2379 devils that were hunting him, leaving countless broken lands and piles of dead devils' bodies wherever he went!

Who could dare to look down upon such a formidable person?

Even when he had reached his end, nobody would dare to challenge his might! Not when he was at his last moments, when he was at his most dangerous.

"Vine Demon! We wouldn't have ganged together to hunt you down like this if it were not for your perverseness against us. Stealing away something that never belonged to you, you deserve this and more!" A sage-like old man in the crowd sighed, completely exhausted, "I just don't understand why… our well known Vine Demon… would suddenly declare war against us and try to do what you did? What you did has led to losses on both our factions in such a critical moment. Since it won't do you any good, why are you doing this?"

Although the two factions finally had the chance to end their shared enemy, Kou Vine, the cost they had paid for it was totally unbearable. They had lost almost 15 percent of their trained warriors in this battle. The losses they had suffered were so massive, to the point where they would find it hard to do battle against the other factions after their civil war starts.

The devil race as a whole would lose their top faction status in the current Underworld once other races begin to rise from this moment of weakness for the devils - it must be the worst situation for them. Besides, there were still the Angels, fallen Angels, and the other factions aiming for their heads like tigers stalking their prey!

After everything that occurred, they were still muddle-headed. They still couldn't understand what the problem was with this horrible Vine Demon?! Why did he refuse to colaborate and started this huge mess?! This was truly harming others without benefiting oneself!

Had the domineering Vine Demon, who persisted in doing whatever he wants, finally wanted to go and fuck the entire race?

Kou Vine sneered, "So you don't get it? You really don't get it? Aha…"

He looked down at the huge pit on his chest through which his entrails could be seen and actually stretched his wounded body. He chillingly said,

"No matter what dirty business you two factions did, I didn't give a damn about it. Except, you refused to stop pestering me and everyone else! I am ashamed that other nobles like me refuse to solve things properly and instead wanted to start a civil war, leading even more of our race to die, especially the Low Class Devils! Even my friend got killed during a petty squabble from other clans, just because they could. So, when I got this, I decided that I would open my own path! Fuck being New or Old, you all are fucking hypocrites in my eyes all the same! Both of your actions are so overbearing, even going as far as breaking our race's futures for petty pride or for political gains. I just detested this! So, I simply refused to join either side and would punish those who did wrong for our race.

"And my retribution? You all hunted me like a dog, while being shit yourselves!"

As Kou finished this another devil spoke up, this one was further on the back with long brown hair and pristine clothes, clearly not having been in the front even once.

"No, Vine Demon! You are wrong! Only the virtuous nobles know what is good or bad and the treasure you stole from a more worthy devil should be returned to a better host. The class division is necessary and it is the place of nobility to command, of the low class to obey, and from those of the very top to dominate. We did nothing wrong!"

"What -hah!" Ye Xiao laughed out as he coughed, "The virtuous nobles you were saying, where are they? But what you said is right. Those at the top should dominate all, but who decided who is on the top?! You, who let more than half our race die because you didn't want to damage you precious Bael Family's power even a bit? Or would it be the ignorant brats of the Four Satans who can only see the booms of the position but none of the responsibility nor care for it, wanting to continue a stupid war we shouldn't even have started?! I know of your methds, you made large wealthy towns turn into wastelands filled with death and coldness on stupid decisions during the war. Then you would cover up your crimes with a claim that those places were innevitable sacrifices while secretly sending your hounds to steal all that was left of the town before anyone could see, buying the open lands or just occupying it and claiming for your clan. You got overly rich from this war, and of course this all was the actions of a Virtuous. Noble. Devil! For the sake of the devil race… How many times did you mindlessly murder a whole town and distort facts in these years? How dare you claim to be virtuous? So darn bloody virtuous! HAHAHAHA!"

He wildly laughed as he spoke. He had an undisguised tone that was full of provocation.

"All of devil kind should bend to the wills of those on top. Anyone who dares to step out of line will get no mercy, and all his relatives will also be killed - no one lives! My whole clan, exterminated after thousands of years of helping the race. You guys acted excessively first, I am just fighting back the same way. One death at a time, how difficult could it be to understand?"

He bent his mouth and smiled sarcastically.

After Kou Vine spoke, the brown haired man - Zekran Bael, the leader of the Bael Clan, had a hideous expression on his face.

"So that's it… The reason you fought against us is simply to fight for justice… to defend devils against our injustice? Aha, what a noble man, Vine Demon! Even so, after your death today, who on earth would go and act against the devil race's costumes again? We two factions may have suffered a great loss, but we are not destroyed. After the armstice ends, we will fully recover! What a pity. After today, there will no longer be a famous Vine Demon! Your name will be stripped away from history and your clan turned into a footnote not worth of mention. And that which you obtained, I will certainly find a better host for it." The leader of the Bael Clan sneered.

"As long as I am still alive, I will never let you just have your way! If I die… then that is as far as I go and what you do with me and my legend afterwards is up to you. What can a dead person gain from praises of the living anyway?" Ye Xiao smiled indifferently, "As long as I can still breathe, the only thing I would like to do, is to wipe all of you bastards out! Let our race start anew!"

Even though he was speaking with disdain, he still felt sorry in his heart because he couldn't wipe out these rotten eggs from his race to avenge his brother!

It was his life's greatest regret!

"I see. We get it." Zekran nodded slowly with a crazy murderous look, "Enough talking, we will end your life! We won't let you stay alive!"

Grinding his teeth, he waved his hand as he shouted, "Go! Kill him! Whatever the cost!"

All the devils attacked at the same time with their full power! Hundreds of the devils risked their lives by using all of their power in this final attack. Countless lights and noises mixed together with countless strong powers, striking Ye Xiao like a huge storm!

The power created by the three factions together had really shaken the earth and the sky. All that could be seen was dust flying up in the air as the land underneath seemed to crack. The mountain where Kou Vine previously stood was instantly crushed into pieces as dust now covered everything. With countless broken rocks flying up, the mountains in between them were completely destroyed all at once.

Kou laughed out loud. After this long battle of life and death, he was truly too exhausted. Even moving a single step felt like climbing the highest of mountains. He could do nothing to defend himself against all these destructive attacks, so he looked carelessly at his enemies with a smile on his face.

At this instant, he and the mountain below his feet were about to be hit by this immense tidal wave of attacks!

His voice reverberated through the air right before he was hit.

"It is a pity that I was fighting alone and failed to kill all of you! If I am given a second chance, I promise, I will cut down all your heads… Fighting alone and letting you bastards get away with your lives is my lifelong regret!"

At the last moment of his life, the unbeatable loner Vine Demon finally realized his greatest weakness!

He was solitary!

Even though he had already become one of the strongest devils in this world, when facing the force of the two devil factions, he himself was simply not enough!

BOOOM! An extremely loud explosion turned the entire sky-high solid mountain into a dust rain of pebbles and rocks.

Dust overflowed and rocks rolled.

The Vine Demon left his last words with his last breath,

"I don't regret my life even though it was so tough, but I hate that I couldn't wipe the rotten out. If only I had an afterlife to wield my spear again, I would slaughter all evil so that I could laugh out loud under this beautiful night sky."

In the mist, Zekran looked at the mess; he murmured with a sullen expression, "Even if you realized it… you would still never stand a chance… and now, you will never know of the truth… of that at least I am grateful."

"Off we go!" Zekran waved his hand. All the warriors turned back and left.

No one had noticed that the moment when the Vine Demon died, a thin purple light had flashed briefly in the sky and disappeared from the spot Kou died.

As the wild wind was howling, all the dust was blown away. The mountain had long disappeared, and there were only the broken rocks on the ground.

Only in the air was there a faintly discernible voice.

"If only I had an afterlife to wield my spear again, I would slaughter all evil so that I could laugh out loud under this beautiful night sky."


	2. Chapter 2

Slowly opening my eyes, I can only stand there in utter shock.

Wait... wait... just what is going on?

I am surrounded by a gel-like substance and cannot move at all. I should be dead, but did the devils managed to capture me and are using me for experiments?

Fuck, if that is so I would rather bite off my own tongue than helping them at all.

As I was thinking so I could suddenly vaguely hear someone talking... let me listen carefully. "...husband, our child is moving…" Following which, there was a vague male's voice, "Let me hear…"

Husband? Just what is going on? why are people speaking this?

Thinking to this point I start to access my situation, and the conclusion I reached isn't pleasant. Not at all.

I, somehow, have been reincarnated and am currently still in the belly of the woman who will be my mother.

I would fear that I might be reborn as some other race, but the abundance of demonic energy around me and the fact I am quite confident about the reason I can do what I did helps in keeping me grounded.

As I think of the thing, the reason why so much happened back then that forced me into hiding, I can only show a wry smile. It was not like I chose to obtain it, I just did.

But, I suppose having one of the Four Original Satans devil god seed inside me and refusing to join either side really made me a thorn on everyone's side.

Of the four Devil God Seeds, the items that can help a devil break through the Ultimate Class into Super Class, one went to Ajuka (Asmodeus), one for Ryzevin (Beelzebub), one for Syrzechs (Leviathan), and the last one for me (Lucifer). Each carry a special attribute and unique powers, for instance, the Leviathan increase the pure might of someone to well beyond the regular limit and helped make the Power of Destruction from Syrzechs stronger. Asmodeus makes it that one's desires become reality much easier, which would explain how he had started creating so many things after he got his seed. Ryzevin's seed of Beelzebub should have the power to negate God's blessings but how exactly it works with that particular piece of shit I have no idea.

Finally, mine own, Lucifer, was a power that was pretty much useless to me at the time since I had so little time before being killed, the power of evolving devil traits. It is the power to take all basic devil skills to the next level, something that matched all too well with the Vine House Trait of control in which we had an unnatural amount of control over our demonic power.

If for other houses or devils their power was ferocious and hard to control, depends more on brute strength than anything else and even the 'genius' Syrzechs could only at most control with some precision his Power of Destruction, my clan could create even fine threads of pure demonic energy or create magic attacks with little to no waste of power.

We were never the strongest clan, but any member of my clan could last on a fight twice as long as those of other clans easily and with power to spare.

I am not even sure if that is all Lucifer Devil God Seed could do or what effects it would have had should I have survived, but I guess I will find out. There is a good reason why, even though he was once an angel before getting this seed, Lucifer still turned into the strongest of all devils.

Perhaps this was why the two factions could not risk me, someone who was already a genius of a clan famed for their fine control, to have the power of evolution of Lucifer and not be affiliated must have been far too large a threat. Also, the simple fact that the seed of Lucifer, the leader of all devils, chose me and none of either of their camps must have stung something fierce as well.

Well, tough luck for them. If I am still in the same world I lived on before I will surely ensure that they will suffer for what they have done.

The Old Satan Faction, our 'allies' left my clan to die only because I refused to go and bend to their every whim and help them on their crazy plan of continuing the war while they themselves stood on the back to 'command'. A bunch of cowards, even on the apex of the war they did not come to the fight and only waited for their precious Satans and the Low Class to do everything for them while they feasted.

And as for the New Satan Faction, I do admit that they have some good ideals, especially the stoping of the war and improving the situation for our whole race, but this and the reality are not the same. While some of their members do fight, most of their true leaders are no better than the Old Satan Faction and only are on this faction because their holdings were in danger if the war continued.

It doesn't help overly much that most of the territories and riches of the clans who blead and died during the war, clans that still had branch members very much alive, had everything taken and given to those of the New Satan Faction to make them even richer. Heck, the greed of some of their members, especially of that damned Bael, is such that I had found out they intentionally let many settlements and armies of other clans close to his lands into traps, giving information for our enemies, only to, after the war, take over their lands and things.

I am disgusted by this. Is this what my clan, my family and friends, fought, bleed, killed, and died for? All to be given for some ass who spent most of the war on the back, not once going for the thick of it and even when pursuing me only appearing at the very end and never even trying to engage.

Sigh, life is just so unfair. Thinking so I suddenly feel something inside me.

It, it still is on me? The power of Lucifer, I still carry it!

If I do still have it then I am sure I still am a devil, no other race can carry this power. I smile, if I am still to be born then this is a chance I cannot fail to use and abuse, the power of Lucifer, the power of Evolution of the devil traits, how much would it change me if I have it since this point on?

How much would it change me if I evolve all my being since before I am even properly born?

Oh, this will be great!

* * *

As time went on I could sense my mind growing and improving, my body changing constantly as if different sources and aspects were warring against each other for dominance over my looks and body.

I noticed that because I seem to still carry the Vine House Trait despite my clan having been decimated so long ago. Thanks to my fine control over demonic power I can sense how it is changing inside me. The power of Evolution from Lucifer Demon God Seed changing my power and I can sense different types of power surging forward.

Perhaps the power of Lucifer is awakening the different devil house bloodlines that I carry on my body. It would make sense, I suppose, since most devils have mixed blood amongst their houses even if normally only one dominant aspect would come forward during birth.

As I left these changes happen (I can't really change anything regarding them since I can't really do much right now) I recount what I have heard until this point.

I have heard multiple conversations while inside my mother's belly by now and am confident I am the son of the oaf of Balam.

Honestly, I would probably laugh or cry if I could right now just by thinking such thing. Amongst all possible devil families, I had to be the son of the stupid oaf, it must be some sort of cosmic joke for sure.

My 'father' is someone I knew well enough. He was probably the stupidest sack of shit that I have ever met, and I knew Ryzevin for fuck's sake. He was the type that knew how to fight, sure, but his idea of diplomacy is showing off his muscles and asking if his opponent surrender only to be shocked if they don't. He is someone who, more than once, went right into an obvious enemy trap during the Great War WHILE BEING WARNED that it WAS a trap.

At least he was loyal to a fault, more than once taking attacks aimed at his subordinates on himself instead, but when asked why not just push his allies out of the path of the attack instead of taking it for them every time he would just laugh embarrassedly, scratch his head, and admit he had not thought once in doing that.

So yeah, I am the son of an oaf.

Well, that at least leaves me with some ideas. I intend to first see how the world is, but I cannot risk drawing attention to me at all. I want myself to go as unnoticed as possible, I committed far too many mistakes in my past life and I do not intend to make the same mistakes again, and my very first mistake was being considered a genius.

Seriously, if not for me being seen as a genius I wouldn't have attracted so much attention to my house nor would I have entered the Great Wat so young. Being looked up to does not open doors, it only constricts you. What open doors exist open for power and influence, being a prospect powerful person only makes others want to control your path.

I also think about what other actions I should take and even begin to think on ways to extract my revenge without damaging my race as much as possible. It is a slow process, trying to figure things out and speculate what I should do, but there isn't really all that much I can do for now.

* * *

After a long time, Kou finally could sense the walls around him start to shake and push. As he sensed that he began to concentrate on a very important task. Focusing his energy he began to try and make things easier for his mother and himself for this birth. It seems that due to the Lucifer Devil King Seed he was much bigger than normal babies and he felt fear that he might injure his mother should he not do so.

As time passed Kou felt as though he had almost expended all of his energy and almost passed out from exhaustion, the energy to keep his mother's body from being injured from birth greater than he originally expected, meanwhile his mother was also letting out cries of pain. Finally, as one we worked together, and as the light finally could be seen Kou heard an excited cry, "It's out, the child is out! Satans, he's huge!" Following which, I finally could relax as I thought.

'Satans, I am finally born! I am really... so tired! Just so tired.' Then, he nearly lost consciousness and almost fell asleep then and there.

In the delivery room, the midwife wiped her face full of sweat and looked at the infant which was just born. Then, she took a cold breath as she thought to herself, 'Satans gracious me, this child is huge! So heavy! I'm afraid he is at least five quilos and a half, maybe even six!'

She then looked towards the young almost unconscious mother lying on the bed with a sense of lingering fear.

"Great news, Lady Balam you have a healthy son!" The midwife said and turned me to Kou's mother. She was pretty with long viridescent green hair with some white streaks on her head and the tips of her hair turning from green to yellow at the tips.

Looking at that slender body and beautiful face, the midwife couldn't help but think, 'Such a large child and such a delicate mother. Both mother and child could actually be born safely. It is really a miracle nothing happened!'

"Give me my child, I want to see him." She said with tears of happiness in her eyes and the midwife went to do just that when the wall of the room basically exploded as the oaf came charging in. Behind him two others entered almost in sequence.

The first one was a 2.3 meters tall man with a square face and sharp eyebrows. His body with some rocky aspects to it and clearly with a rounder belly than he had during the war, but with one glance Kou could tell it was the same men he remembers from his previous life. Before he liked showing off a strong front of power and influence, a certain prestige so to say, but right now, that face was filled with anxiousness, worry, and tenderness. The moment he entered the delivery room, he rushed to the side of the young mother and asked with concern,

"Darling, are you alright?"

Kou who was wrapped up in swaddling clothes was calmly staring at this whole scene. Then, he suddenly felt his nose itch and involuntarily let out a large sneeze. In his mind, he berated his father for being so sweaty like that when entering this place and clearly not using even a deodorant spell beforehand.

He stinks, is what Kou could think at this moment. The next moment, he heard someone laughingly scold him, "This little fellow, there isn't anything wrong when someone else carries him. But when I carry him, he actually sprayed me a face full of mucus! Haha…" There was no anger in the voice but only delight, pride, and more importantly, satisfaction and gratitude!

It was as though it was a great pride and honor for him to be sprayed a face full of mucus and saliva by his own son. Seeing this look Kou felt like sighing in frustration as the man held him close and he had to smell that abominable smell up close.

Finally, someone had the good sense to take Kou away from that Oaf, but instead of being given to his mother who smelled nice he was presented to the other male there, this one at 2,2 meters tall with a face much like his son and with a few scars on his face which made his silly smile seem even more disturbing and ugly.

"My grandchild, just look at you. You have so little rock on you, I am sure you will be a talent like none other and I will finally be able to show off to that damned Zekran who likes to show off that his grandson is Lord Lucifer now. Hehe, you will certainly be great at this. My little diamond." He said as he poked the center of Kou's forehead, but Kou was no longer paying attention to this.

Instead, he was more worried about the mention that Syrzechs was now Lucifer, the one who should have control over the future of the devil race. Syrzechs, a man who was led by his emotions more often than not and could likely put the benefits and well being of the whole race in jeopardy if it is for his family.

And it was especially troubling since Syrzechs was the grandson of Zekran, the influence of that damned traitor of the race would certainly be far too strong if that was so and his crimes against the race likely pushed under the rug.

Looking up Kou paid attention to the Clan Head of the Balam Family, someone he knew from his previous life and with a sigh he realized that this was no different to the person in his impression, laughing like an idiot! Kou could not help but despise him in his heart as he revealed a smile, thinking that if not for his wife this family would likely have died right at the start of the war. The man was a nice buddy to drink a beer, but much like his son, the two were followers, not cut out to be leaders or think ahead in the slightest.

"Wahahaha! Look, he is smiling! My grandson is smiling! Hahaha! He is indeed my grandson, smiling the moment he sees his grandfather! Wahaha…" The old man laughed until his saliva began to spit all over with most of it landing on Kou's face. Kou was completely speechless as he felt his face getting wet with saliva, he even began to wonder if he should cry if only to make someone else how him but he feared if this man would keep yelling and the first drink of Kou's life would not be milk as he preferred.

In his mind he could only scold, 'Just laugh if you want, but is there a need to give me free rain?'

"Darn old man, you're going crazy again! What if you scare my grandson with your loud voice? Aiyah, look at your thick and clumsy hands, how will you be able to hold the child? You are not good, not good at all to take care of a child. Go and play with your sticks, hammers, or whatever. Come, give him to me, give him to me. Mmm, good grandson, let granny hug you. Hahaha, look at how handsome he is. These small eyes and nose are exactly the same as his father's…" By the side, a kind-looking lady snatched Kou over and hugged him like a treasured darling.

Could finally smile in relief, he finally found the one person here he knew had the right ambition and intelligence to be of great use for him in the days to come.

"So? What should we name him?"

"How about Kou? Kou Balam!" The oaf father of Kou said and Kou felt like this was a terrible idea, just terrible.

"Are you an idiot? Did I raise such a simpleton that can't even put the two brain cells in that empty head of yours to work?" Kou's grandmother said. "Kou is the name of the Vine Demon, even if his name was erased from all registry many still remember him and they know our Balam clan was close to the Vine. If we name him Kou it can only lead to bad results!"

"But I want to name my son for my best friend at all times!" Kou's father said childishly and Kou rolled his eyes at that. He never, not even once, agreed to be friends with his idiot. He was just the only one that could stand his presence when he began to speak nonsense by going through the old technique of sounding interested while not paying any sort of attention whatsoever. That this man had committed so many mistakes during the whole war and Kou, as a member of the same squad, had to save this idiot many times over of his own idiocy only served to annoy Kou further.

Kou's grandmother wanted to argue more but in the end, the name was decided when Kou's mother agreed to the suggestion of her husband.

Thus Kou's name would remain the same and Kou would have to be extra sure to not be taken seriously or paid attention to now, especially if his name were to remain the same. But, in all honesty, Kou rather enjoyed still having the same name.


	3. Chapter 3

Time passed by as, little by little, Kou came to familiarize himself with the current world he lives in. So much time passed, so many changes happened, but the most important remained exactly the same in his eyes. The opressed few remained in much the same way and the Rating Games being little more than spectacles to make the devils forget their troubles. It was like what his old friend Nero told him once, that to make the masses compacent the best is the politic of Bread and Circus, the politics of giving people the bare minimum they should have had while distracting them from the actual issues.

That the Vine Clan really became a footnote and put as colateral damage of the Great War made Kou's blood boil. He didn't mind if they just erased his name from the history of devil-kind, but his clan fought bravely and did not die during the Great War. It was the treasonous acts of the Bael Clan as well as a few others that led to their destruction, to have all their accomplishments distributed in these history books amongst other clans and to have turned from one of the greatest houses of Devil-King, one of the nine King families, to this.

Yeah, this was not a pleasant experience.

The years also drifted by as Kou started to plot what he was to do. In a blink of an eye, Ling Tian was already five years old and he already had started developing a reputation of being a 'little shit'.

He would harass the maids, play pranks, punish others for no reason, just about anything to make others think of him as a 'little shit. His father and grandfather would scold him, more than once hitting his ass in their anger, but it was all worth it when he realized how people would act around him.

The winter wind was biting cold, and large snowflakes fluttered about, blanketing the sky and earth in a silvery white color. Mid-winter was fast approaching.

Deep into the night when all was quiet, the snowflakes still floated down, unhurriedly and unceasingly.

In kou's personal quarters the temperature was, however, warm like spring.

Kou was alone inside, his small body completely naked as he did push-ups without a sign of stopping. His face was warped with agony as his body dripped with sweat all over.

he knew that if he wanted to survive in this current world where the rules had become more complicated than in his previous life, the only option he had was to quickly raise his own strength first, so he could deal with any unexpected twists along the way while he prepared forces for himself. Within these five years, because of the experiences Kou had in his past life, he familiarized himself to ways of training. He knew what to do regarding most things but there was still much he needed to learn regarding other matters like his house traits.

Yep, as in multiple ones.

It seems like the Lucifer Seed activating during the period his body was being formed made his bloodline much stronger than it should. Considering how most of them were no different than if he was a pure blood of someone from that clan and only one was much stronger than the others Kou supposed that, should he not have had that seed, he would only have shown the power of the Balam Clan.

Not that he is complaining, definetly no complaints there.

As his mother came from a branch family, a descendant of devils who are related to nobility but did not inherit the power of their original clan or inherited in a much weaker version, it was no surprise he got so much variety. Branch families were much freer to intermarry than the main houses so now he had the power of seven different house traits.

The Balam Clan with their absurd strength and defense, absolute tanks in the battlefield that could shield away most attacks and crush their enemies using their bare hands or their heavy spears;

The Marbas with their intelligence for creation being damn near unparalleled, most being killed during the war as a way of stoping the creation of better weapons to the Underworld but their mark remains with creation of demonic weapons like Gram and Gae Bolg;

The Zepar with their hypnotic voice, they were a menace to the other factions and during the way, they were killed above everyone else as a way to get rid of someone who could potentially change an entire battlefield;

The Focalor with they claiming to be the descendants of the Goldn Peng, a bird so large that it could dwarf mountains and that was said to eat dragons, it had the greatest flying speed and control over the wind amongst all beasts and even if it had to fight the original Phoenix it would not lose out in any way. The Focalor clan inherited it's speed and their control over the wind is simply leagues above what any other devil clan can compare;

The Lerajee and their control over gravity, they could not seem it but they could be more destructive than even cause more destruction than the Bael's power of destruction and those at the top of their clan able to make even Gods bow to them;

The Furfur and their mastery over poison, another menace aimed by the other factions with extreme prejudice after a single devil of this clan managed to kill over 2000 angels and 5000 exorcists while drinking tea as if it was nothing much. A shame he died, he was a cool guy;

And finally the proper branch clan my mother came from, the Agares clan with their time manipulation. The lapdogs of the Bael Clan as of right now.

To say that Kou was not exactly enthused about his relation with the Agares Clan after seeing how this clan liked to suck up to the Bael clan. That Kou's idiotic father is making him come to the Agares house with him during this weak as it was to be the fourth birthday of the future heiress of this clan did not ingratiate himself to this whole ordeal.

"Son, when we get there remember that old Shick is a friend of your old man here. So try and not end up making a scene, please." Lord Balam said and Kou, for one moment, thought of how his father knows him just too well.

Kou had already started his campaign to make everyone think of me as if he is a 'little shit'. Whenever he went into town he would make some kind of mess including sending his guards to harass those of minor noble clans, he would publicly berate some of the servants of his house, and he would also act like a pervert every once in a while.

His father probably fears he might try something when in this party, but honestly, Kou's father is acting stupid.

Of course, he intends to cement my 'fame' in this party.

And, even more importantly, he wants enough infamy to spread so as to not get any marriage proposals. He understands, thanks to his studies in the current devil society, that marriages happen since a younger and younger age, anything to ensure that there is a next generation of devils more and more populous. It sounded ridiculous in Kou's ears, especially with the creation of a system like the Evil Piece system, that underpopulation remained an issue.

If Ajuka could create something that could change the races of others as well as empower them, why could he not just create something to make devils more fertile? It made absolutely no sense for Kou, the only plausible explanation being that Ajuka never bothered with such a 'mundane' idea such as that.

Back to the matter at hand, Kou was of a mind that he must ensure no heir or little princess would be in an engagement to him, that would certainly be the worst possible outcome. He intends to create his own army and forces, ensure that no one realize what he is doing, but if there is a fiancee then she would have to spend time with him and her clan would be highly interested on him. That was one of the worst possible things that could happen to him.

And he does not accept such an outcome, now he only had to decide what would be the best way to ensure that he would become completely unacceptable for any parent to force their child on him?

Oh, that idea might work.

* * *

At the feast, things were going well for lord Balam. His unruly son was behaving well enough and no screams of maids could be heard of the house catching fire, so things were going truly well enough.

He was talking with the head of the Agares Clan, Shick Agares. As the two being old friends had much they liked talking about and beside the head of the Agares Clan was his only daughter, Sekvaria.

"So, my little Sekvaria here is quite the cutie, wouldn't you say, old friend?" Shick said with pride as his daughter smiled up at him.

"Oh, indeed she is. And I am sure she will grow up to be a beauty when she gets older." Lord Balam said with a smile and the girl primed at the compliment.

At this moment Shick looked around and could not help but ask.

"Where is your child exactly? I have heard that he must be here somewhere, but I can't seem to find him."

"Oh, my Kou is..." Lord Balam then froze as he noticed something.

It was no accident that there was no sign of problem regarding Kou in this party, in truth Kou was not even IN the party. He had long since escaped the place and no one saw when he did it.

After they noticed this there was a commotion until a guard came back from the gates of the mansion. In his hands a handwritten letter that said as such:

'This place is boring. All these old farts are stupid and they all dress like clowns but are not funny at all. I am going to town, I will go back to my house afterward, bye.'

Kou had ditched the entire party entirely and his father started throwing a fit regarding this. He imediatly sent out all guards and in the chaos the Agares Clan Head sent out much of his own guards to search for Kou.

What no one realized was that Kou was not really outside the mansion. On a place not far from where the chaos was starting Kou was calmly waiting for a chance.

Even if Kou no longer had the Vine bloodline he still was simply far too used to exact absolute control over his own powers. He had indeed walked as if he was to leave the mansion and left the message, but as soon as he left the message he used the Zepar House Trait to send the guards on the entrance into a trance. Kou was still not strong enough to completely ensnare the thoughts of devils since they have an inherent magic defense, but he was more than capable enough to dull the senses of those guards to only go report after a few minutes.

It was quite simple really, and after doing so he used the Focalor trait. Most thought that the Focalor would focus on brute force due to their power over wind, and they would not be wrong since most people with this clan trait did focus on this, but Kou knew that this was not all. During the war he had seen a member of that clan who had low magic reserves control the wind around him to distort the light around himself, making it where he could become invisible to the eye.

Kou did just the same, with his perfect control he redirected the light around himself and became invisible. With the time frame until the news of his disappearance appeared and for his plan to work he had a limited amount of time, but he had a clear objective in mind.

Moving quickly but silently he entered the personal library of the Agares Clan, the place where they keep all their secret documents, magic tomes, and scripts regarding the usage of their clan trait as well as those of the clan which the territory the Agares Clan took over after the war, the Marbas Clan. The number of things in this place was large and Kou knew he did not had an undetermined amount of time so he went about executing his plan.

During his previous life, he had done many espionage missions and from it he knew some utility spells, including the one to copy the information of one place to another as if it was in a copy machine.

He took about 20 minutes doing that and after completing this he set everything to how it was previously and went about putting everything into its proper place.

With this done he quickly moved through the castle, intent on getting out of the castle and fulfilling the next step of his plan.

When he got out he went straight to his objective. On the shadiest part of town, he went about searching for the one place no one would think a child of his age would be at.

It was another three hours until he was found and the faces of the devils when they found him, a child of only five, surrounded by semi-naked to completely naked women dancing for him in a strip club and in his hands a large jug of wine with many bottles already very much empty around him.

Needless to say, news od how 'proactive' the child was spread like fire and before long the entirety of the Underworld knew of this.

Kou didn't mind, not one bit. A lion does not care for the opinion of the sheep and he might still be a cub, but he knew he would grow and he would make sure to make things right then. One step at a time.

* * *

**AN**

**Just a heads-up but there is a pool in my page regarding which characters to add to the Peerage/harem (if girls, at least. Males are Peerage only as I don't do Yaoi).**


	4. Chapter 4

Returning home it was not his father who went to speak with Kou, it was much worse.

His grandmother.

It must be understood, while the males of the Balam family were respectable generals and fighters, they were also normally utterly stupid when it came to matters of state, plotting, or anything that is not pure combat. Thus, whenever something happens that affects the family standing that is not purely combat-related, it was not Kou's father or grandfather who would deal with it but Kou's grandmother.

When she was informed of what happened at that gathering the old madam of the Balam family was scandalized for a moment before exploding in rage. Rage not directed exclusively at Kou, but also to his parents.

"You two idiots! Can you see what you two have done?!" The old madam said and Kou's father and mother both looked confused.

"Sorry, mother-in-law, but what exactly have I done?" the mother of Kou, Giana, asked in confusion. She always tried her best in teaching her son but nothing ever seemed to work.

"What have you done? You even have the gall to ask that?!" The old madam, Marci Balam, asked in fury. "You two were so 'overly enthusiasmatic' after the birth of little Kou that the entire house could hear you two going at it! And you two were in the same room as him, where else could he have learned to act in such a way than by imitating you two!?" Marci said and while Giana's face became red in embarrassment her husband looked actually proud of himself for his actions.

Seeing his proud face made Marci angry so he punched him, as she also had the Balam bloodline she fist was especially tough and sent her son, the current head of the Balam family and a Ultimate Class devil, flying into the sky and far away.

As Giana saw this she became a bit terrified again because of this family of hers, they migh be quite unassuming but they certainly were not to be triffled with.

Being the owners of the three biggest mines in the Underworld and having generals and high command officers throughout the Devil Race main army the Balam family was not to be underestimated, but it was. Constantly so no less.

The Rook Piece of the Evil Piece system grants something similar to their house trait, making many people consider them a knock-off from Rooks everywhere. The fact that most of their males are, for a lack of better words, simpletons also does not help their situation. That they are not the richest house, only the second richest due to the Phenex who enjoys showing off their wealth only makes this worse.

Many even forget they exist, such is how they are currently. Heck, the fact that Giana was a branch family member of the Agares clan instead of a direct descendant was proof of how low other clans see them.

"Sorry, mother-in-law, I promise me and my doofus will not act in such a shameful way again." Giana said only for Marci to rage again.

"You idiot! If you and my doofus of a son don't fool around how am I supposed to get surrounded by grandkids? Just don't do it in front of the kids, it is not so hard!"

Needless to say, while the women of the Balam clan were much more politically savvy than the males they still could be loud, boisterous, and extreme.

After this was done Marci went to see her grandson.

When she entered the room she was ready to begin her tirade when she froze. Her grandson still looked the same for her but there was a clear difference in him now.

"Grandmother, tell me something." Kou started, his eyes distant as he spoke looking outside and Marci decided to listen to him. "On our world, how long has it been since the Great War and the Civil War ended?"

At this question Marci answered quite easily.

"About eight hundred years now."

"So why is it that we still suffer from the wounds of that time?" As he asked that Kou's fist clenched. "I have looked over the documents, our losses at that time were severe and we lost most of our fighting force. However, despite that things should not have progressed as they did. Not at all.

"Our population has grown back 30% from that time to now, but this number is pathetic. Repopulation should have been the first priority of our race after all those disasters, but instead we focused on silly games. Our leaders are ridiculous shadows of what they should be and the fact that we zealously kept some of the old rules that led us to disaster while completely ignoring others is just ridiculous.

"Now there is now hope for Low-Class Devils to grow in class, true enough, but the difficulty of one doing that may as well mean it is better to give up. Even if one manages to grow they must associate themselves with those of the current government so no change is possible. That even after the civil war we still are divided into two 'factions' is the apex of the absurd.

"Why did so many devils died during those fights if not to decide our future? And now we are again on the point where things will escalate, and fast, to war."

As the word 'war' was spoken old madam Marci shivered a bit. She then took a new look at her grandson, and now he did not show any of the signs of the 'little shit' he always acted like. No, he now acted in a way that no one would be able to doubt him.

"You, what do you intend to do exactly?" She asked a bit fearful of this grandson that even she had looked down upon until now.

"What I intend to do? Simple, I will do what our leaders were too incompetent to do. I intend to make our clan strong enough to survive what is to come soon, I intend to eliminate the elements that are stiffling our society from proper growth, and I intend to break the current way which we grow in ranks. We need to change, otherwise we will forever be in a dangerous position."

As Kou spoke and explained his plans in more details Old Madam Marci could almost see it, rivers of blood and the deaths of possibly tens of thousands, the destruction unlike anything else and the future beyond that.

After she left Kou's rooms she stood in her quarters for two days and three nights silently, not speaking a single word throughout, and by the time she left her room she had come to a decision.

She could see clearly how Kou intends to do what he wants, she knows she is likely the only one who can stop him, but she won't do that.

For a long time now she felt dissatisfied. Her clan has suffered like any other clan during both the Great War and the Civil War, in both cases, the Balam clan supported what would come to be the New Satan Faction.

And what did they get?

Nothing.

Literally nothing.

Their territories continued the same, the spoils of both wars were distributed for those who 'needed them more', meaning those who blindly obeyed, and even when they wanted something they could not get it. Heck, of the current government they had little influence and their work was considered inferior. To make matters worse the current government decided to 'help' some of the fallen clans by setting up places where they can locate themselves and the location just so happened to be on the border with the Balam territory.

The devils there would constantly invade and they were supposed to stay quiet about it.

She hated this, but had little way of changing with the way things are currently. Her clan was barely being kept afloat thanks to her deals and their money but the Baels clearly wanted to expand over their lands and the Four Satans, those who should stop such actions, were completely untrustworthy in her eyes. The Lucifer spends all his times gushing over his sister, Leviathan does much the same as well as a television show for kids, Beelzebub locks himself in his lab and only cares if it is a complete emergency, and Asmodeus only wants to sleep.

However, now her grandson may have found them a way of surviving this. She may not enjoy what he intends to do, but she will allow it nonetheless.

* * *

Kou's P.O.V.

After convincing grandmother about my plans she told me just some instructions.

First, I am not allowed to allow others to find out my plans;

Second, she will support me creating my army, but it must be in one of the mines of my family and not on places too close to the mansion;

Third, before I begin to act she must be informed;

And finally, the clan will cover the expanses the best she can, but I must find a way to fund our operations regardless.

None are impossible by any means, some are honestly even quite easy to follow, so I feel satisfied.

Today I decided to go and take a look around the town near the mansion of the Balam clan.

The Balam clan is one of the original 9 devil King clans, and even if we are falling behind of others in some aspects the city near out castle is nothing to scoff at.

It spams for kilometers on end and there are plenty of smiths all around as we have the biggest and main source of iron in the entire Underworld. Unfortunately, we are not really good for much else except for metal production.

Walking around I can see many blacksmiths going at it with gusto, the sound of metal clangs as they hit their hammers and the sound of metal being sharpened is definitely interesting. But, for today, I have a certain wish.

I intend to search for talents.

I already talked with grandmother, she will force father into sending the family some of the soldiers from the military under his direct control. She will give some random excuse but her actual desire would be to send them to work for me directly, she intends to send someone to help in their and my own training and these guards will have to sign a geass that forbids them from ever sharing anything that we do, but it should be quite good.

But, even with that, I cannot confirm if these people will be any good for what I intend. I want absolute loyalty, those who would be loyal to their very bone. And I especially need those who I can trust to follow my orders regardless of what they may be.

Thus, I need to foment them from young and what better place than in the slums? There is a big one in this city and there is also a refugee camp near the borders of our territory where devils from extinct clans are located, those who no longer have any of their riches, their bloodlines became too thin, and are close to true extinction.

There are also many places all around that are interesting for recruitment. The Balam territory is close to the lands of the Beelzebub, Asmodeus, and Leviathan clan, all clans that treat their Low-Class like utter trash. We are on truly fertile ground for what I intend.

As I was thinking thus I reached the slums and noticed that there is a commotion. While it is snowing (it is winter right now) there is shouting and I can see a mob being formed. Moving quickly I see a little girl of about 7 or perhaps 8 years old being surrounded by many devils, they all are angry at the girl.

Moving towards the scene I can see that she is holding a simple bread, it isn't even that good for one as it clearly has signs of mold being formed in people around her were clearly all beggars and were trying to take it from the girl.

I might not be a hero, despite having once been called such as a young hero of the Underworld, but I can't just ignore something when I can see it so clearly in front of me. Moving to the direction of the commotion I can see the hate and desire to lash out, these people are not really mad at this girl but only wish to lash out at whatever is in front of them without regard.

Feeling highly annoyed at this fact I move as the first rock is being thrown. I was about to intervene when the rock 'missed'. Well, not really missed as there was a portal that opened in front of it and another that appeared behind her to avoid the attack.

... Why is a devil of the Abbadom clan here?

No, wait, that is not quite right. That was not the power of Hole, not quite anyway.

Oh, ohhh now that is interesting. Her abilities may seem similar to that of the Abadom clan, but the Abadom were simply an offshot of the clan which her skills came from.

The Amy clan and their ability, Replacement. They can exchange things from place to place, simple as that.

I had to hide an excited desire to jump in glee at seeing a chance like this, but for that I first stopped what was going on.

"You all, stop this at once." I said as I got closer. The beggars turned to look at me and disdain was clear on their faces.

Not wanting to even care about this I just moved forward, ignoring them as I did so until I got between them and the girl.

"You all, why are you all so angry?" I asked and before any of them could speak I could hear their stomachs grumble. Hearing this I nodded to myself and took out a few silver coins. "Here, use these to get some food in you. Also, spread the news, we will beging recruitment for a guard soon and if anyone is interested and is willing to put in effort they are to come to the base of the Janfer Mountain. It is honest job and will give everyone a place to sleep and good meals."

As I said so they all got a bit excited and with a few 'thank you, my lord' and 'Satans's bless you, our prince' they all turned and left.

I then turned to the girl in question that I protected and saw that she began eating that bad bread with pure hunger in her eyes. Seeing this I quickly took the bread out of her hands and spoke. Moving fast I took out the bread from her hands as that thing can only get her sick. When I did so she directly punched me in the face, but she was so light that I didn't feel anything from it. Seeing my lack of reaction she continued doing it, again and again.

I could see in her eyes, I have seen those eyes more times than I care to count. The eyes of someone who just wants to blame someone, that lost everything, and wants to vent their problems, frustrations, and fears in any way they can. The eyes of someone lost.

I let her vent all she wanted, and after she had done too much and was unable to do anything she passed out in front of me. Her clothes are in tatters and her blond hair was utterly dirty, her entire appearance was of a beggar without a question.

Oh well, I guess my plans to scout this place will be a bit of a bust for now. Well, I can get things back together soon enough anyway and this girl here might be just what I was searching for.

Later, when she awoken again, I gave her some proper food and watched as she ate with gusto.

I could now take a better look at the girl in front of me; she was dressed in a set of long robes which looked as though they belonged to an adult. The robe was full of colorful patches, showing the signs of being mended many times. There were some parts of the robes which were split apart, revealing her skin which had turned purple from the cold. At the same time, her face was very pale and she was skinny to the point a light gust of wind can topple her. Her hair was a pale blond and disheveled displaying the signs of malnutrition for a long period of time, while her face was full of dirt and her original appearance could no longer be seen. Her large blue eyes stared at me in fear while I was examining her and her body began to tremble.

Seeing her reaction I put on a friendly smile and then squatted down and asked the girl tenderly, "What is your name? Where are your parents?"

Seeing that she was still trembling I frowned, took out my jacket, and told her.

"Here, this jacket is quite warm. It should help. Now, can you answer me?"

The girl was wrapped up in my jacket which still had my body temperature, seemed to be feeling a sense of inexpiable warmth. As she heard what I asked her, her eyes began to turn red as she whimpered,

"Daddy, mummy...they...*sniff* *sniff*… they died already. They died from the cold, died from hunger… *sniff* *sniff*…"

Her actions reminded me of the many war orphans from back them, of how I could never really help them as much as I wanted and how I died trying to change things in a way to improve things for them and so many others, only to fail.

Feeling a pang at my heart I then said gently,

"Mmm, don't cry. When did all these happen?" As I said that, I wiped the tears off the face, not bothered about the filth on her face at all. It was just dirt, nothing to worry about.

I lifted up the little girl's face with my hands carefully and gently, as I did so it seemed like she finally started to see that I was not one of the 'bad guys'. She then began to calm down and said,

"It was a week ago. I was freezing when daddy and mummy gave me all their clothes. *sniff* *sniff*… they gave me all they had to eat… *sniff* *sniff*… they were originally sick already, but they wouldn't listen to me telling them no, they only smiled even as they gave me what little food we had left…"

I felt my heart clench hearing this and a burning anger at the situation we as devils arrived where even at a major city things like that happen. And I know for a fact that my family is amongst those who treat the Low-Class the best, we do what we can to improve things for everyone, and this still happens. I can't help but wonder just how bad things are for those in the territories of those who treat their Low Class citizens as trash.

Calming down I continued.

"What is your name?"

The little girl said with a sob, "I'm… I'm called Angelica Amy."

I then replied with a 'humm' before continuing, "Angelica Amy, right? Angelica Amy, why not you follow me in future? I will make sure you can eat your fill everyday and that you will always have a place to call home and a ceeling over your head."

The little girl's face became filled with tears and she knelt down, "I thank the young master for his kindness. Angelica Amy is willing to be young master's slave, serving young master for the rest of my life."

"Now, now, none of that. My name is Kou, and never call yourself as my slave or anything of the sort. How about my personal maid instead? I am led to believe many nobles have at least one of those, so how about it?" I proposed. My real objective was threefold, first to get myself someone I could trust and that was strong (which I am pretty sure I can, I bet I can make her an Ultimate Class by age 14 at most), second being to complement the idea of me being a useless noble who now needs a maid following him around everywhere, and third simply because I want to help her and being my maid will certainly be better than being a beggar fighting over a piece of spoiled breed.

"Y-Yes, this maid may not know much but I am willing to learn. Thank you, young master." Angelica said and I nodded at her with a light smile.

"Great, but we have a bit of a problem here. You see, the name Amy would attract attention, attention I really don't want right now." I told her.

"I see, what would you suggest then?" She asked.

"What if we change your name, at least until we can announce your real name with confidence?" I proposed. "And as for names, how about we mix Amy with something else... oh, I know Ainsworth, it would mean the 'one worthy', and it still starts with a as in Amy. How about it?" I proposed.

She mouthed it a few times and nodded.

"Very well, then I will be known from now on as Angelica Ainsworth."


	5. Chapter 5

Back in the mansion Kou had led Angelica around. As he walked the servants around looked at them in doubt and, in some of them, some disgust at seeing Kou, despite being so young, dragging a girl around like that.

Angelica, by her part, could only look on at Kou as they moved through the mansion.

She has never been in a place like this, never having even heard of somewhere like this.

Moving through this place one could hear the sounds of clashing and hits, the sounds were loud and as they moved along it was clear that it was only growing louder and louder.

Kou noticed her worried expression and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry so much about it. That is just some of our soldiers training for a bit." Kou said and Angelica slowly nodded. Her dirty hair was quite plastered and Kou looked troubled as he could well imagine that she should be getting some proper care soon.

Looking around Kou saw one of the maids in the castle passing by and he signed for her to get close.

The maid looked extremely reluctant of doing so, but did it anyway and when she was close enough he spoke.

"Take this girl to the baths. Make sure she is properly cleaned and taken care off, after that you may find a room for her close to my courtyard for her to rest. Also, tell the chef that he must prepare healthy foods that are easy on the stomach for her and call a doctor of the house to check on her to make sure she is fine." The maid nodded her head, feeling that this ought to be one of this young master's weird quirks for him to do this much for a girl that was clearly just a street rat.

After this Kou let Angelica go to take the bath she needed and go rest. He had something he had to take care of.

Going to his grandmother Kou spoke with her regarding some matters he saw that would need to change. Specifically he wanted to use the vast amount of money from the clan in order to buy enough foodstocks to feed the entire population from the city.

"Kou, I understand that you desire to be a good boy and help those in need, but this would be far too expensive for merely charity." The madam said and Kou smirked in return.

"Grandmother, this should hardly count as charity. What I intend to do is not charity, it is hoarding a resource that clearly is not being used well enough by ourselves and most certainly our neighbors." Kou said and the madam took a little while before she realized what he intended.

"... You want the low class devils." She said in half a whisper and Kou laughed at that.

"No, no grandmother. I do not 'want' them, I will use them like no other group is using." He said. "I noticed how, even in our own territory that is considerably rich, there are still many people suffering from starvation. Imagine the lands around us, after all we are so close to some of the lands of the Old Satan Faction and they are decidedly bad places to live for the lower class. If we have enough food and work for them, wouldn't many migrate for here? And besides, if we have a sudden increase in population it wouldn't be strange for us to increase our military for the sake of internal peace and thus we can open a bigger opening for our personal guard."

The madam nodded her head but couldn't help but note.

"I see, but even with this increase in the personal guard we can well expect that we will be watched by both the Old and New Satan factions. Creating the army you desire them would be quite hard." She noted and he laughed at the question.

"Grandmother, you think too little of me. I will not use the guard for my army, the key is the recruitment itself. Many people will try and join considering the favorable positions and salaries, but that doesn't mean everyone will pass. Those who don't pass but have enough determination and have no family that would particularly notice them gone, those are the ones that would be pulled along for the army. That is specially true for half blood orphans, I am confident many exist and that would try to join the guard, the disappearance of them would not attract much of any attention from the two factions. If we can also create several orphanages we can take those half bloods and other orphans and indoctrinate them into our army properly." Kou said and the madam was stunned at his plans.

They would certainly not be easy to implement, but if they worked they would be a great hidden force for the Balam clan.

After that the two talked extensively regarding what they were to do and the madam told Kou a very interesting piece of information.

"Kou, take a look at this information and tell me your thoughts regarding it." She said as she passed him a letter.

Taking the letter in his hands Kou read it and upon finishing it he had to read it again before asking.

"... Is this information trustworthy?"

"Yes, absolutely so." The madam said and Kou felt like laughing out of sheer glee. If he was not utterly hated by the heavens he would claim that they were blessing him.

In the note there were words describing that the Purson house was requesting aid from the Balam house and would accept any request if they were given said help. The Purson house was one that many looked down upon due to their house trait, **Anti Recognition**. It makes it where they absolutely are not able to stand out. They not only are easy to miss in the background, they also dissipate easily if they get too much attention when actively using this skill. In a sense they are able to use this as if they are teleporting, which in the state they can traverse freely and can re-appear to new locations they want.

That was undoubtedly a greatly powerful house trait, but that also meant that they only ever got work as assassins since they could never fight in an 'honorable' way like other devils. As such many never considered them much since there were no great feats to their names even if they were to do great things, which they did like the assassination of two of the original 12 Archangels during the great war. They also fell from glory as their lands were exactly in the middle of the battle between both the Old and New Satan factions, and to make matters worse they also were once close allies from the Vine house, the house which Kou belonged to in the past, and thus were heavily persecuted by both Old and New Satan factions.

Many even said that the New Satan Faction just didn't eliminate them because there were already far too few houses and as for the Old Satan Faction, they looked down so much on this house that they completely forgot about destroying it until the war had already ended and they couldn't destroy the house.

After questioning his grandmother for a bit he found that the house of Purson has been requesting military and financial aid for some time now, but all the houses firmly on either the Old or New Satan faction side would not give it as they still resented their support for the Vine house in the past and there were just a few houses that were not fully with either side with the Balam being the strongest of them.

Of the current 32 houses + clans of the Old Satans, only six were not fully associated directly with either side. They were the Balam, Purson, Dantalion, and Shax. They all were not in particularly great positions and the Purson in special was the weakest of them.

"... Would they accept vassalage if we were to help them? And how bad is their situation exactly?" Kou asked, taking back most of his excitement.

The Purson were the absolute worst when it comes to fighting directly, but even if most never even realize it they were the best assassins in the entire Underworld, probably even the Grim Reapers would pale in comparison to them. Having such a family with them would be invaluable, especially with information gathering.

"They would likely accept the vassalage as long as we give favorable enough terms and as for their problem, from the information we could gather we had noticed that they lack most of everything. Their lands were heavily damaged during the war and their funds have been running low since, originally they had great enough land to sustain their population but due to the destruction of the land itself they now can't properly farm and they never had much in the way of mineral resources. To make matters worse the Old Satan faction is aggressively moving into their territory to try and force them into joining, taking many of the lower class from these lands and making them into servants. Well, servants is the gentle term, slaves would be a more apt description and the New Satan faction does nothing due to the Bael house hating the Purson due to the assassination of the mother of Zekran around two thousand years ago. They claim that the Old Satan faction members are merely bandits and they will not move to hunt down bandits as the Pillar Houses should be able to do so regardless."

Kou nodded, understanding the situation. Well, this was still a great opportunity even if it would be a bit more public than what he would have wanted.

"Grandmother, we should move in to help the Purson clan then. For that, just tell father about it and make sure to spin it as something that he would actually want to get involved." Kou said and the madam snorted.

That would be far too easy, her oaf of a son would jump straight into any battle if he was given any chance, how else would he not only be one of the highest ranking generals and the current top 4 and only staying firmly in fourth because he would only challenge Diehauser after achieving this position and inevitably losing every time. The oaf was far too eager to battle, but his losing streak in the rating games makes most forget that he is still fourth rank as the ones bellow him can't beat him at all and the second and third rankers also refuse to challenge him for fear of losing.

To convince the oaf about getting involved, she would just have to say that there is a fight going on and he would gladly go there.

* * *

After that a month passed by as if on the blink of an eye. During this time Kou was quite busy, he had one of the empty mines of his family turned into a 'summer house' like most other devils have, but unlike other devils his summer house was purely a facade since he had already prepared the housing underground and training facilities for his personal army.

Not that he focused only on that, he would go in disguise to the neighboring lands of his family's territory, to be exact on the lands where the camps where the remnants of some of the pillar houses were put. They had devils who still had their clan's devil trait, sure, but they were still not part of their clan's original main branch, thus the Senate would not allow them to properly restabilish their houses. But, at the same time, they wanted those branches who still had their house traits to survive and possibly marry into the third or fourth sons and daughters of 'proper' pillar houses.

It was pure politics and these remnants hated it, they loathed this fact and many even wanted to rebel against it, after all their individual powers were not any lesser than those from the pillar houses' main branches. Instead of taking their positions, or at least ANY position, they were sidelined by the nobility and even when they tried to work as Low Class devils they couldn't find jobs since other Low Class devils didn't want to get involved with Nobility.

They existed in this limbo of sorts, surviving depending on mostly only hand outs from the pillar houses and that was barely enough for them to even survive properly. Many would even become servants in the peerages of others to even be able to get any form of proper work.

This resentment was the perfect soil for what Kou wanted, spreading news of how the Balam house was hiring people for it's guards that needed to increase with the sudden influx or people since they started distributing food for those in need.

Those houses were all too happy about it as they now had a place to send their second or third child without needing to go into a peerage of some scum pillar devil.

Not only that, during this month he started practicing further with his skills in the family traits he had in this life and researched extensively about where the location of one place was.

After finding out where that place was after a lot of search through documents Kou went to talk with his grandmother, requesting for a few guards, four at most, that were absolutely loyal to the Balam family only.

After some haggling she agreed with him as long as he were to promise that he would not do anything that could potentially be regarded as dangerous and that he would return before the guard tests started.

Thus, this was how they now were here, on a mountain track in the middle of nowhere in a mountain range that was considerably deep within one of the places in the Underworld that the Devil Race had no control over.

The evil witches' forest.

As they moved through this mountains Kou looked a bit excited, he was hoping that what he had in mind was still there as it would decidedly be a great help for him if it was. By his side was his personal maid, Angelica, who has spent this last month training for the position she was granted.

To say she was diligent would be an understatement, she wanted to repay her young master for saving her from that life she was living before and as such she put all her effort into it.

"My lord we have been walking for a long time now. We could've taken a faster path like flying or teleporting, so why are we going to the mountains?"

"Its simple Angelica, we are doing this because it is by far the best way to get to where we are intending to visit." Kou told her as they continued forward.

"Are you sure my lord? As far as I could gather this place doesn't seem to have anything of vallue and I doubt flying through the sky would be worse than tracking through so much follaige and dealing with these insects." Angelica said, and despite being stoic as she spoke it was clear she was annoyed with the many bugs all around.

"Angelica, you can never know until you see what your eyes doesn't see." "What does that mean my lord?" "You'll know soon enough, now lets continue to walk." Kou said with a chuckle. The guards looked at each other and shrugged. They didn't care why their young master wanted to fool around in the woods like that, it was at least better than visiting brothels or getting into drunken fights despite still being a kid.

However, when they arrived at a small temple at the top of the mountain and saw a simple sign saying 'If you are a devil, fuck off' they started sweating, a lot.

They knew of only one place that had a setting such a this, a small temple at the top of a mountain with such a sing was more like a myth than a fact for most devils.

Well, 'myth' is not quite the right word.

Nightmare sounded more like it.

A terrible nightmare that had claimed the life of several high ranking and ultimate class devils who tried to enter.

This was the three demons' sanctuary, the place where three of the seven original devils were buried. And, unbeknownst to the guards and mostly all other devils alive, this place also carried another importance.

This was where Kou Vinea made his base and trained originally, the place from which he became one of the strongest devils in existence.


	6. Chapter 6

As he walks to the inside of the temple grounds Kou looked around noticing the marks of time, it truly has been a long time since anyone took proper care of this place.

'Well, not that I expected much of her anyway.' Kou thought with a sigh, knowing perfectly well that the one inside would likely not care about the appearance of this place anyway.

The entire grounds have a gloomy and terrible feel to it, making one wonder if a ghost would pop out at any corner. The guards were quite tense, looking as if they were entering a battlefield but Kou walked as if he didn't even notice that the place had any weird vibes to it. For the guards it looked like he lacked awareness of the dangers of this place, while in fact he just knew better.

After advancing until near the end of this place they could see a cave. It was long and clearly meanacing, like the open mouth of a beast that could devour the word.

Kou just wanted to roll his eyes, the amount of work he had to put in order to help set up this place for that damned woman who craves for knowledge still made him want to curse out loud. It proved useful, true enough, but there shouldn't be any reason for this absurd amount of theatrics regardless of her flimsy excuses at thetime.

Before he entered this place he stops Angelica and his servants who were actually about to either stop or follow him inside. "What, what is it my lord?" One of the guards asked.

"There is something on that cave where I must go alone, make sure to inform me if there is anyone approaching this area. You can just yell if needed." Kou said easily enough.

"My lord are you sure, I can go with you if anything happens to you, I can't forgive myself." Another of the guards said seriously. He owed the Balam family simply too much and would rather die than let it's heir perish just like that.

"Its alright, I'm confident that there will be nothing happening to me, now wait here. It is an order." Kou said to the guards who reluctantly nodded.

Seeing that Kou turned to Angelica, who was looking extremely nervous, and put a hand on her head.

"Don't worry. I will be fine and when I return I should have something nice for you." He said with a mischievous smile.

Lowering her head Angelica slowly nodded her head, her face flushed at the simple sign of affection her young master was giving her and she was quite glad about it.

Kou, seeing that the others listened to his words, walked into the cave leaving Angelica and his servant alone as he advanced to it's depths. As he delved deeper into the cave he was pulled in what seemed like a kaleidoscope of colors after a bit he stands still before his surroundings are transformed into a grassy plain. There was only grass until where the eyes can see and as he he walked forward in silence he sees a figure over in the distance that has a table tea set ready for anyone that wants tea for her guest. She had her eyes closed before she smiled as she turns to his direction.

"You kept me waiting for a while, my devil."

"What can I say, besides that I am back, my witch."

As he said this the said 'witch' chuckled at his words and looked amused at him.

"I don't remember being yours, is it just that I am too old to forget such meaningless details?" She said with a teasing tone and Kou shrugged.

"Well, what can I say. I am a greedy devil that fits well with this greedy witch before me." As he said this she gave him a large smile and commented.

"True enough, none of the other few devils who tried to get in here were even half as entertaining as you are. Also, how exactly did you reincarnate?" She asked him as if such thing was not that big of a deal.

"I am honestly not fully sure. I can only guess that it was because I had bonded with the Devil God Seed of Lucifer, the sin of Pride."

The woman looked surprised at that.

"I see, that is certainly interesting then. I have never had much of a chance to study other Devil God Seeds besides the one that I got." She said. "I wonder what are the differences between Mamoon (Greed) and Lucifer (Pride)."

Kou waved his hand dismissively.

"No need to think too much on that for now. It is not like we are on a hurry to find out and won't have plenty of time later."

"True enough. But, I demand to be able to learn more from you then." She said and he laughed.

"For a witch you truly are fitting for the seed of greed. Wanting to have all knowledge in the world and discover everything there is in it."

"And for a devil you truly are fitting for the seed of pride. Choosing to fight and die in a fruitless battle when there is hardly anything to gain from it only so you can stick to your ideals to the bitter end."

As the two finished speaking a content silence spread for a bit before The woman spoke.

"Truly, it is good to have my old partner back, Kou."

"And it is good to have you back, Echidna."

Echidna, this woman was a special existence even amongst special existences.

Born a regular human (albeit a noble) thousands of years ago she lived a life of hardship since her lands were poor and there was much conflict to be had. When she was about 11 or 12 years old she discovered a talent for magic and started researching it with great fascination, putting all her focus into this.

For others it might have been to save her people, but in truth it was far from it.

She was simply greedy for knowledge.

She studied more and more until, one day, she decided to try a ritual to summon a devil. She was not sure what the results would be, but even if she died due to it she figured that she would simply continue to study even in death.

That was the day she met Kou Vinea.

Quickly enough they created a devil and witch contract, helping one another extensively for anything they could need. Kou, at the time, was already in the middle of the war and took his time with Echidna as a way to relax.

After a few years, however, Echidna put it on her mind that she wanted to be a devil. There wasn't any particular reason behind it and she would openly admit it was simply a whim, but it was her whim and thus he would follow it.

Thus the first reincarnated devil was born.

Almost instantly upon being reborn as a devil the Devil God seed of Mamon chose her. She was honestly unsure what it's effects were at the time, only figuring it out later.

She, wanting to have more time to study and to ensure she would not just become some random soul, created this very space inside this secret spot that Kou showed her, the energy in the air being extremely rich and this place being suitable for her to create a special ritual where, in case she was to die for whatever reason, her soul would return to this location and have a chance of reincarnating by either taking someone else's body or creating one anew.

With this she no longer truly feared death since she would not truly die unless this place was destroyed and doing so was not easy at all. With this she confidently took many risks to obtain many things for her research. She even managed to steal the bodies of both Draig and Albion after God killed them and took their souls to create sacred gears.

However, in the end she was killed during the ambush from both the Old and New Satan faction, her death being the biggest point that tipped Kou into truly moving against those two sides and not siding with either.

They, at that point, were like family. Sure, she would sacrifice him in a bloody ritual if it means reaching her objectives just as he would kill her without mercy if this was truly necessary for the well being of devil kind as a whole, but the two still cared greatly for one another and wouldn't hesitate to punish severely anyone that harms the other.

Echidna, playing with the border of her tea cup, spoke up.

"You know, I have been thinking lately on getting out of here. Almost took my chances in reincarnating in some no name devil girl who was close by one of these days, but ended up giving up on it. I am not sure, but I felt like I should wait just a little while more and then something nice would happen."

"Another one of your hunches, I suppose." Kou said and she smirked.

"Yeah, it has been a tad lonely here, even if not so much to be honest. I was just getting bored as there is little more I can research with what I have here in my hands." She said and Kou nodded.

"Fine then. But, I will need my stuff back then." He said. Over the years during the war he obtained a lot of loot since many devils, angels, fallen angels, and even the ocasional minor God he killed all had many things in storage on their person. That meant he got a lot of things and he took those things all to this little Sanctuary of Echidna as she would otherwise complain with him that he wasn't giving her enough trinkets to study.

He would let her take those, but she agreed that, should he ever want or need them back, she would give it back.

She easily enough nodded.

"Sure, I don't really mind. There is little left that I can even discover with those anyway." She said and waved him off.

Seeing this he smiled and spoke.

"Great to see that you are still the same despite so much time having passed." He said and she shrugged.

"I had a lot to research anyway, not that I have much left to learn from what is here." She said. "Hey, would you mind reincarnating me in your peerage?"

Kou, hearing her words, raised a brow.

"Well, after understanding the idea of a peerage, and despite finding it slightly distasteful, I can't deny that I can see the use of it and that you was the first one I thought about."

"Oho, so you think so much about me? I am honored." She said with a small smirk and he just chuckled.

"Not really, I just thought that if you were to know that I had a way to bring you back and I didn't use it then you would likely become insufferable annoying." He said and this erased her smile quite quickly.

After that they just bantered a while longer before Kou was ready to leave. Echidna having given him a storage ring where all the things they had collected before and she had no further use for were all put.

He was about to leave when Echidna spoke up.

"Also, take these with you." She said as she threw two rocks emanating a deep and extremely pure devil energy from it. "There are the Devil God seeds of Sloth and Wrath. Give them to someone who is compatible enough, even if no one has appeared that is perfectly compatible like I was with Greed and you with Pride."

Seeing those two items in his hands Kou had a strange thought and asked.

"Hey, just so I can confirm but did you open the bodies of the great ancestors of the entire Devil Race in your research during this time?" He asked and she looked at him as if he was stupid.

"Of course I did. They were valuable samples of study that were just being wasted otherwise." She said, not feeling any shame for the fact she desecrate what most devils would see as their most honorable ancestor.

The seven original devils, three of them died before the great war and they were all put to rest here in this place.

'Well, I never really cared for them that much.' Kou admitted to himself as he started walking out. It would be another five years before he had his own peerage and thus it would take that long until he could bring Echidna out.

"Before you leave, take this." Echidna said as she threw him a grimoire. "This can let us talk even when you are not in here. It should be of help." She said and Kou nodded his head as he left.

While walking away he checked what was inside of that ring and he smirked upon seeing just how much there was here. It was more than enough for him to make a killing if he were to auction it later on, and he was already thinking on how to do it and the best way to take advantage of it.

He was a bit pressed for time, in all honesty,since, according to the information he had gotten from his grandmother, he predicted that a civil war would start in one or two decades from then. Time was not his ally and he would need to ensure that he would come out the final victor of what was to come.


End file.
